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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap».„!rTuopyrigfit So. „__. 

ShelLlMSt 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 






*T)oN T WORRY 



J. R. MILLER, D.D. 



NEW YORK 

WARD & DRUMMOND 

711 Broadway 



DON'T WORRY 



tf BY 

J. R. MILLER, D.D. 

AUTHOR OF "SILENT TIMES," "MAKING THE MOST OF 

LIFE," "THE EVERY DAY OF LIFE," "SUMMER 

GATHERING FOR WINTER'S NEED," "THE 

BUILDING OF CHARACTER," ETC, 



;i ; 









NEW YORK 

WARD & DRUMMOND 
711 Broadway 



The Librv\r^ 

OF CONGRE^ 



WASHINGTON 



BV4-S 10 
.M5SL 



Copyright, 1894, by 
WARD & DRUMMOND 



Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
Astor Place, Nev/ York 



to 



"Be not therefore anxious." — -Jesus Christ, 

" In nothing be anxious." — St. Paul. 

" Casting all your anxiety upon Him." — St. Peter. 



DON'T WORRY. 

Don't worry ! " Ah," says some anxious 
reader, " it is easy to preach, but hard to 
practise. No doubt it is good advice, but 
can we follow it ? " Yes, we can learn to 
follow it. It comes naturally to none ; it is a 
lesson that must be learned. Yet it can be 
learned. 

Many people seem never to understand 
that they must learn how to live. They sup- 
pose that they were sent into life just as they 
are to go through life, and do not realize that 
there are a great many things in them that 
need to be changed, many that require to be 
made over altogether. It comes naturally to 
no one to live well, to live ideally. We have 
many things to overcome, faults to correct, 
undisciplined powers to bring under control, 
hindrances to subdue and change into helps. 

Living is a fine art. Life is a school. We 
understand that we have to learn all the 
worthy things in education. If a man is to 
become an artist, he has to learn art, It 



6 don't worry. 

does not come to him by instinct, as a kind 
of skill comes to certain animals. He cannot 
take up a brush and some paints, and, with- 
out being taught and without practice, put a 
noble painting on the canvas. It takes many 
years of hard and most patient learning to be 
an artist. One cannot get music as music 
comes to a bird. Only after the most labo- 
rious training can one sing so as to thrill 
hearts, or sweep the keys of an instrument 
so as to hold listeners spellbound with one's 
music. 

We all understand that before we can 
attain any proficiency in any pursuit, busi- 
ness, trade, or art, we must spend much time 
in learning the rules, and then in acquiring 
the practice necessary to give us skill. Life 
itself is a great deal higher art — finer, more 
difficult — than painting, music, architecture, 
navigation, or any other branch of life's 
work. We need to learn how to live. This 
is just what being a Christian is — learning 
from Christ to be Christlike. It is to this 
that Jesus calls us when He invites us to fol- 
low Him. "Come unto me, . . . learn of 
me," is His bidding. His word is our text- 
book ; He himself is our teacher ; life is our 
school. We are to learn by doing, by prac- 
tice, just as men learn any other art. 



DON T WORRY. 7 

Don't worry ! That is the lesson. It is set 
for us in our text-book. We are not likely to 
live thus, naturally. We have to learn to do 
it, and the learning is not easy. St. Paul was 
an old man when he said he had learned, 
in whatsoever state he was, therein to be 
content ; and his language seems to imply 
that the lesson had not been easily learned. 
Nor shall we find it less difficult. But how- 
ever hard it may be, we should strive to 
learn it, for it is the ideal Christian life. 

In the Sermon on the Mount our great 
Teacher devoted a large section of His in- 
struction to the subject of care". No lesson 
could be written out more clearly or enforced 
by more impressive reasons. The motive of 
the lesson is that we are God's children, and 
should trust our Father's loving thought for 
us. He is able to provide for us and keep 
us in safety and peace in all our experiences. 
Surely it is not fitting that the children of the 
heavenly Father should worry ! 

George MacDonald tells of a castle in which 
lived an old man and his son. Though they 
owned the castle, they were yet very poor. 
They could scarcely get enough bread to 
keep them from starving. Yet all the time 
there was great wealth, which, if they had 
known of it, would have supplied all their 



8 don't worry. 

wants. Through long generations there had 
been concealed within the castle very valu- 
able jewels, which had been placed there by- 
some remote ancestor, so that if he or any 
of his descendants should be in need there 
would be something in reserve. 

For a long time the old man and his son 
suffered for want of food, not knowing of the 
hidden treasures. At last, however, they 
learned in some way of the concealed jewels, 
and at once found themselves in the enjoy- 
ment of great riches. Instantly their distress 
was ended. Yet all the years of their pinch- 
ing poverty these treasures had lain there, 
belonging to them, ready to furnish them all 
the comforts of life, laid up there for this very 
purpose. They suffered, close to this abun- 
dant provision, because they did not know 
of it. 

This story illustrates the case of many 
Christians. They are living in their Father's 
house, in which are stored the rich treasures 
of divine love. Yet many of them seem not 
to know of these treasures, and live in dis- 
tress, as if no provision were made for their 
wants. There really never is any reason why 
a child of God should worry about anything. 
This is the lesson which Jesus sets for us in 
His wonderful teaching. 



DON T WORRY. 9 

One of the reasons He gives is that anxi- 
ety about food and raiment and the world's 
things is serving mammon, and we cannot 
serve God and mammon at the same time. 
The mind must be centred before it can have 
perfect peace. It must have one motive, one 
aim, one allegiance, one ground of confidence. 
If it is divided between two interests there 
will be distraction, and the peace will be 
broken. Anxiety is a sin, because it is not 
trusting God fully and wholly. It is trusting 
money to provide for our wants, instead of 
trusting God. When money fails, then we 
are in distress. George MacDonald says 
again: "How often do we look upon God 
as our last and feeblest resource ! We go to 
Him because we have nowhere else to go." 
We feel safe enough when mammon's abun- 
dance fills the pantry and the wardrobe. But 
when mammon's supplies are exhausted, and 
we have only God, we worry. 

What we need is to train ourselvesf to such 
trust and confidence in God, that, though 
mammon's resources fail us altogether, we 
shall not be afraid, because we have God. 
A man is in a pitiful plight when mammon is 
his god. Money is a good thing, in its place. 
It is one of God's blessings. But when it 
gets to be a man's master it is turned into a 



to DON T WORRY. 

curse. We all need to guard ourselves from 
the peril of mammon-worship. There is a 
story of a merchant who was resolved to 
make money his servant, never allowing it to 
become his master. Once, a ship of his that 
was coming home was over-due. The first 
day he was anxious, the next day yet more 
worried, and the third day he found himself 
very sorely troubled. Then he came to him- 
self, and, seeing what a hold earthly things 
had gotten upon him, he ceased to be anxious 
for his ship and became alarmed for his own 
soul. " Is it possible," he asked, " that I am 
coming to love money for itself, and not 
merely for its nobler uses ? " Taking the 
value of the ship and its cargo, he gave it to 
charities, not because he wdshed to be rid of 
the money, but because only thus could he 
get the conquest over himself. He w r ho has 
learned this lesson well will not worry. He 
is God's servant, God's child, and is depend- 
ent for happiness, not upon the continuance 
of earthly prosperity, but upon God, whose 
resources of provision and blessing are infi- 
nite, like Himself. Whether he has affluence 
or nothing, he is at peace, for God is taking 
care of him. 

Another reason Jesus gives against worry 
is that God, having given us our life, is surely 



DONT WORRY. II 

able to provide for our life's passing needs. 
The life itself is more than its provision. 
What a strange, mysterious thing it is, this 
that we call life ! It is more wonderful than 
the mountains or the stars. Think of physi- 
cal life, that beats in the heart and pulses in 
the veins, and stirs in all the fibres. Think 
of mental life, that knows, remembers, feels, 
thinks, chooses, loves, suffers ; that can dart 
across seas and fly to the stars ; that can 
create beauty, plan, reason, discover, will. 
Think of spiritual life, that can climb the 
stairways of light and commune with God ; 
that can worship ; that can be fashioned into 
the divine image ; that is capable of heavenly 
blessedness, and shares the immortality of 
God. Do not the acts of creating and bestow- 
ing a thing so marvellous as life require a 
more wonderful manifestation of power than 
the providing of the little piece of bread and 
the cup of water we need, day by day, to 
sustain the functions of life ? Why then 
should we be anxious for these things ? 

Another reason why we should not worry, 
the great Teacher draws from nature. God 
feeds the birds and clothes the flowers. 
" Behold the birds of the heaven, that they 
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather 
into barns : and your heavenly Father feedeth 



12 DON T WORRY. 

them. Are not ye of much more value than 
they ? " What is the teaching ? Is it that, 
since the birds neither sow nor reap, nor 
gather into barns, therefore we should put 
forth no exertion to provide for our own 
wants ? No ; the birds do the best they 
know. They live as they were made to live. 
But we are better than the birds, We are 
gifted for work. We are endowed with 
powers by which we are able, ordinarily, to 
provide for ourselves. Work is not part of 
the Adamic curse, as some people imagine. 
It was a divine ordinance for man from the 
beginning. It is not an untoiling life that 
Jesus enjoins in His allusion to the untoiling 
birds. 

The teaching is that we are to fill our place 
as the birds fill theirs, be true to our divine 
vocation as they are to theirs, and then that 
God will provide for our wants as he does 
for theirs. In the prayer which Christ gave 
us we are taught to ask : " Give us this 
day our daily bread." It is our bread only 
after we have earned it. We ask for it 
even then, because it is God's bread, and we 
can get it with a blessing only out of His 
hand. 

The argument which Jesus used in enforc- 
ing this part of His teaching is that we are 



don't worry. 13 

much better than the birds. Birds have no 
soul, no mental faculties. They cannot think 
nor reason. They do not wear God's image. 
They have no spiritual nature, no immor- 
tality. 

"You are better than the birds," said the 
Teacher. Man is the crown of God's works. 
The great dramatist has this eulogy : " What 
a piece of work is man ! How noble in rea- 
son ! How infinite in faculties ! In form 
and moving, how express and admirable ! in 
action how like an angel ! in apprehension 
how like a god ! The beauty of the world ! 
The paragon of animals ! " Surely a man is 
better than a bird. Surely then, too, the 
God who cares for a little soulless, unthink- 
ing, dying bird will care much more thought- 
fully for a noble, thinking, divinely gifted, 
immortal man. 

Besides, God is our Father. " Your heav- 
enly Father feedeth them." He is not the 
birds' Father. An earthly father will do 
more for his children than for his fowls. A 
mother will give more thought to her baby 
than to her canary. Our heavenly Father 
will provide more surely, more carefully, for 
His own children than for His birds. 

A like lesson concerning raiment, Jesus 
teaches from the flowers. God clothes the 



14 don't worry. 

lilies in loveliness far surpassing any adorn- 
ment which the finest looms or the rarest 
skill of art can produce. " Consider the lilies 
of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, 
neither do they spin : yet I say unto you, 
that even Solomon in all his glory was not 
arrayed like one of these." We are better 
than flowers. They live but a day, and their 
beauty fades. They are lovely, but they have 
no soul, no mind, no future. If our Father 
lavishes so much beauty on plants that last 
but a day and then perish, need we fear that 
He will fail to provide for us, His own chil- 
dren, who are to live forever ? Like the 
lilies, we should grow wherever God plants 
us, not complaining, not vexing ourselves 
with anxious care, pouring out the fragrance 
of love, fulfilling God's purpose and doing 
God's will. 



* Yes, leave it with Him ; 
The lilies all do, 

And they grow ; 
They grow in the rain, 
And they grow in the dew — 
Yes, they grow ; 
They grow in the darkness, all hid in the night, 
They grow in the sunshine, revealed by the light — 
Still they grow. 



don't worry. 15 

" They ask not your planting, 
They need not your care 

As they grow. 
Dropped down in the valley, 
The field, anywhere — 
There they grow ; 
They grow in their beauty, arrayed in pure white ; 
They grow, clothed in glory, by heaven's own 
light- 
Sweetly grow. 

" The grasses are clothed 
And the ravens are fed 

From His store ; 
But you who are loved 
And guarded and led, 
How much more 
Will He clothe you, and feed you, and give you His 

care ! 
Then leave it with Him ; He has, everywhere, 
Ample store. 

" Yes, leave it with Him ; 
J Tis more dear to His heart, 

You will know, 
Than the lilies that bloom, 
Or the flowers that start 
'Neath the snow. 
Whatever you need, if you ask it in prayer, 
You can leave it with Him, for you are His care, 
You, you know." 



16 don't worry. 

Another of the reasons our Teacher gives 
why we should not worry is the uselessness 
of it. We cannot, by being anxious about 
our height, for example, make ourselves any 
taller. A great deal of the worrying that is 
so common is over matters that we have no 
power to change. There is much fretting 
about the weather. There are many people 
who never get it just as they want it. They 
are always complaining and finding fault. 
But who ever heard of such fretting changing 
the weather ? It were better to accept it as 
it comes and be cheerful, whichever way the 
wind blows, and whether it be hot or cold, 
rainy or dry. 

There are many whose condition in life 
disappoints them. They are poor, and have 
to work hard to provide for those dependent 
upon them. They have trials and hardships 
to endure. Difficulties confront them. Their 
lot in the world is not easy. Sometimes one 
can change one's circumstances, better one's 
condition, by making an earnest effort. This 
should always be one's aim. God desires us 
to make the most of our life. He would not 
have us continue to live in unpleasant con- 
ditions which, with a little energy and taste, 
we might transform to comfort. If the roof 
leaks when it rains, we ought to mend it, and 



don't worry. 17 

not fret and chafe over it. If the fence is 
broken, and our neighbor's cattle get into our 
garden and injure our plants and flowers, we 
ought to repair the fence instead of worrying 
over the annoyance. If the chimney smokes, 
we ought to have the flues cleaned out or the 
defect remedied in some way, and not con- 
tinue to sit in the smoke and breathe the 
sulphurous fumes. There are many worries 
of this class which we ought to have sense 
and energy enough to cure for ourselves 
without vexing our souls with anxiety over 
them. 

But there are many things not just to our 
mind, which no thought or energy of ours 
can change. There are troubles or mis- 
fortunes which have already passed ; why 
should we vex ourselves over these? We 
cannot help sorrowing when a loved one has 
been taken from us ; but why should we 
refuse to acquiesce in the will of God ? When 
some misfortune has taken money from us, 
or when some turn in affairs has hurt our 
worldly interests, why should we sit down 
and grieve over the loss ? Worry will not 
retrieve it, nor give us back the old favorable 
conditions. It is a great deal more sensible 
thing for us to face the fact of our diminished 
resources, or to accept the new and changed 

2 



1 8 don't worry. 

conditions, adjusting ourselves to them, and 
go right on with our life. He was a wise 
traveller who, when his horse died, said : 
" Well, I must walk now," and trudged on 
with cheerful energy. Yet a great many- 
people would have sat down beside the dead 
horse and spent days in bemoaning their 
loss. The mill cannot grind with the water 
that is past. We cannot have the thing we 
lost yesterday. 

Wise are we if we learn this part of the 
lesson, and never waste a moment in worry- 
ing over what no human power can give to 
us again. This is true even in sorrow. Why 
should we weep inconsolably over the grave 
that holds our friend ? We cannot bring him 
back. We must live now without him. His 
work is done, but ours is not done. We must 
readjust our life so that we can live nobly 
alone. Sadness only unfits us for duty. We 
need all our strength in order to be faithful 
in our lonelier condition. Regret never helps 
anything. It does not restore what has been 
taken away. It does not undo mistakes nor 
wipe out sins. We would better accept what 
is done and is beyond any power to recall, 
and take life just as it is now, working out 
our little duty bravely and with quiet faith. 
Says James Whitcomb Riley : 



don't worry. 19 

"O heart of mine, we shouldn't 

Worry so. 
What we've missed of calm we couldn't 

Have, you know. 
What we've met of stormy pain, 
And of sorrow's driving rain, 
We can better meet again, 

If it blow. 

"We have erred in that dark hour, 

We have known ; 
When our tears fell with the shower 

All alone. 
Were not shine and shadow blent 
As the gracious Master meant ? 
Let us temper our content 

With His own." 

There are many things in life which are 
not to our mind, but which we cannot alter. 
Young people ofttimes fret over the limita- 
tions of their life, the narrowness of their op- 
portunity. If only they had the home and the 
opportunities of some envied neighbor, they 
would get on a great deal better, making 
very much more of their life. They have to 
work constantly on the farm or in the shop. 
They have no time for reading. Their home 
is without cheerfulness, perhaps uncongenial. 
They love it, of course, but it lacks the privi- 



20 DON T WORRY. 

leges which they crave. It does not inspire 
them to their best. They grow discontented, 
and allow the hardnesses and uncongeniali- 
ties of their lot to dishearten and depress 
them. 

But what good can ever come from worry- 
ing over such things ? The nobler way, the 
wiser way, is to accept the conditions that 
are discouraging, and to live cheerfully in 
them. Hard work is made easier when we 
can sing at it. Burdens are made light when 
one's heart is filled with joy. When we ac- 
quiesce in any unpleasant experience we have 
conquered the unpleasantness. A thoughtful 
writer says: "The soul loses command of 
itself when it is impatient, whereas, when it 
submits without a murmur, it possesses itself 
in peace, and possesses God. . . . When 
we acquiesce in an evil it is no longer such. 
Why make a real calamity of it by resistance ? 
Peace does not dwell in outward things, but 
within the soul. We may preserve it in the 
midst of bitterest pain if our will remains firm 
and submissive. Peace in this life springs 
from acquiescence even in disagreeable 
things, not in exemption from bearing them." 

Besides, the very hardness of our condition 
is ofttimes that feature of it from which the 
greatest blessing comes. The world's best 



DONT WORRY. 21 

men have not been grown in easy circum- 
stances. Pampered, petted boys do not 
usually make the heroes and the great men 
of their generation. Hardship in early years, 
nine times out of ten, is that which makes a 
man strong and stalwart in character, and a 
power among men when he reaches his prime. 
Herodotus wrote : " It is a law of nature that 
faint-hearted men should be the fruit of lux- 
urious countries ; for we never find that the 
same soil produces delicacies and heroes." 

Therefore, instead of worrying over the 
rough, stern, and severe things in his environ- 
ment, a hearty, wholesome boy ought to set 
to work to master them, and in mastering 
them get strength and victoriousness for his 
own life. A connoisseur in gems brought a 
large, beautiful onyx to a fine artist, and said : 
" See how clear, pure, and transparent this 
stone is. What a fine one for your skill, 
were it not for this one fatal blemish ! " Then 
he showed the lapidary at one point an under- 
lying tinge of iron-rust, which, he said, made 
the stone almost worthless. 

But the artist took it, and with matchless 
skill and delicacy wrought upon the stone, 
carving on it the graceful figure of a lovely 
goddess. By most ingenious and patient use 
of his engraving tool he fashioned it so that 



22 DON T WORRY. 

what had seemed an irreparable blemish was 
made into a leopard-skin, on which rested 
the feet of the goddess — the contrasting col- 
ors enhancing the beauty of the cameo. 

This illustrates what we may do with the 
hard things in our condition, what God would 
have us do with them. We think we can 
never make anything beautiful and worthy of 
our life, with the many discouraging things, 
the obstinate hindrances, there are in our lot. 
Really, however, we can make our life all the 
nobler, richer, greater, stronger, worthier, by 
means of the very things which, we think, 
ruin our chances. We can so carve the stone 
that the iron-rust which seems to mar it shall 
prove one of its finest features when mas- 
tered and wrought into its own place. 

That is the way to treat hard and discour- 
aging things in our lot. It is useless to fret 
over them — fretting will never remove them, 
and it only weakens our energy and mars our 
life. There is no other such enemy to noble 
living and heroic achievement as worrying. 
But if we meet the hindrances and discour- 
agements with undismayed courage, w r ith 
persistent resolve, and with unconquerable 
energy, we shall master them, and in master- 
ing them carve royalty of character and noble 
worth for ourselves. 



DON T WORRY. 23 

Another of our Teacher's reasons why we 
should not worry is that worrying is a sin. 
The Gentiles, he says — that is, heathen peo- 
ple — do it, but they know no better. They 
have never been taught about our God, that 
He is a Father to His children. They know 
only the idolater's gods, which can do nothing 
for their worshippers. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that the Gentiles are often anxious 
about the future, or that life's confused events 
perplex them. But we know God. We know 
that He is our Father. We have His prom- 
ises. It must seem strange to the angels 
that Christian people, who call themselves 
God's children, and have such assurances of 
love and divine care and faithfulness as fill 
the Bible pages, should ever be anxious. 
Perhaps the very richness of God's goodness 
and the unbroken continuity of His favors and 
mercies are reasons why we fail to get all the 
comfort we should receive from the divine 
Fatherhood. 

Some one has said that if only once or twice 
in a century God were to unveil the starry 
heavens, showing us the glory of their splen- 
dors, all men would look up in awe to adore 
and worship. But because every night the 
sky is unveiled to us and its wondrous beauty 
shown, we walk about on the dark earth and 



24 don't worry. 

scarcely ever see the stars. If there were 
breaks sometimes in the flow of God's good- 
ness, we would better appreciate its won- 
drous meaning ; but living evermore beneath 
its benedictions, we do not realize its fulness 
and blessedness. Yet surely, with such a 
Father, caring for us more constantly and 
more tenderly than any human mother cares 
for her child, we ought never to worry. Anx- 
iety is not merely an unhappy feverishness, 
an allowable weakness : it is sin, for it is 
doubting God. 

For, as the Master tells us again, we really 
have nothing to do with the care of our own 
life. We have but one thing to do : " Seek 
ye first the kingdom of God and His righteous- 
ness." The care of our life, then, is God's, 
not ours : " and all these things shall be added 
unto you." When soldiers enter the service 
of the country, they have nothing whatever to 
do with providing for their wants. They are 
to be faithful soldiers, and the government 
looks after their needs. So it is with Christ's 
followers. They devote their lives to Christ, 
and He cares for them. When, therefore, we 
grow anxious about food or raiment or shelter 
or safety, we are taking the care of our life 
out of our Father's hands. 

We should learn to put the emphasis upon 



DONT WORRY. 25 

duty, not upon care, for duty only is ours. 
We must be diligent and faithful. Nothing 
must be left undone. Nothing must be done 
out of harmony with God's law of righteous- 
ness. We must never resort to dishonesty in 
thought or word or deed, in seeking to pro- 
vide for our wants. No matter how great 
the necessity, how circled about with danger 
the way may be, how pressing the need, how 
impossible it may seem for help or relief to 
come, we must never turn aside a hair's 
breadth from the course that is right. We 
must do ever whatsoever things are true, 
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things 
are honorable, whatsoever things are lovely, 
and somehow God will bless us and show us 
light. 

" Nothing done out of our daily path of 
love and duty, no fretting or chafing, will 
turn over the next page in the story for us, 
because a larger, stronger hand than ours 
holds the leaves together ; and simply in 
clinging to that hand must we walk straight 
on and never mind our longings to see the 
end, however intense they may be. Some 
day we shall read the story from first to last, 
and see clearly the divine meaning of the 
whole ; see it with smiling, not streaming 
eyes ; with folded, not struggling hands." 



26 don't worry. 

At the close of His wonderful words about 
worry, the great Teacher gives one of the 
secrets of unanxious living. He says we 
should keep the fences up between the days. 
"Be not therefore anxious for the morrow, 
for the morrow will be anxious for itself. 
Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." 
We should keep each day with its needs shut 
off by itself. To-morrow's cares we must not 
bring back into to-day's little hours. There 
is no room for them there, nor have we 
strength for them. We have just room and 
strength enough for to-day's own duties and 
cares. No one ever finds one day's load too 
heavy ; it is when we try to carry the burden 
of other days in addition to to-day's that we 
break down. It is a golden lesson, a blessed 
secret, this living by the day. Its beauty 
and its mercifulness are shown so simply, so 
plainly, in George Klingle's lines, that they 
must be given here : 

" One single day 

Is not so much to look upon. There is 

some way 
Of passing hours of such a limit. We can 

face 
A single day ; but place 
Too many days before sad eyes — 
Too many days for smothered sighs — 



don't worry. 27 

And we lose heart 

Just at the start. 

Years really are not long, nor lives — 

The longest which survives — 

And yet to look across 

A future we must tread bowed by a sense 

of loss, 
Bearing some burden weighing down so low, 
That we can scarcely go 
One step ahead — this is so hard, 
So stern a view to face, unstarred, 
Untouched by light, so masked with dread. 
If we would take a step ahead, 
Be brave, and keep 
The feet quite steady ; feel the breath of 

life sweep 
Ever on our face again. 
We must not look across — looking in vain — 
But downward to the next close step, 
And up. Eyes that have wept 
Must look a little way, not far. 
God broke the years to hours and days, 
That hour by hour 
And day by day, 
Just going on a little way, 
We might be able all along 
To keep quite strong. 
Should all the weights of life 
Be laid across our shoulders, and the future, 

rife 



28 don't worry. 

With woe and struggle, meet us face to face 

At just one place, 

We could not go ; 

Our feet would stop. And so 

God lays a little on us every day, 

And never, I believe, on all the way, 

Will burdens bear so deep, 

Or pathways lie so steep, 

But we can go, if by God's power 

We only bear the burden of the hour." 

Thus imperfectly has the Master's great 
lesson been set forth. He who learns the 
lesson — to live without anxiety — has mas- 
tered the art of living. He is ready now to 
live sweetly and most effectively. It is said 
that the electric dynamo is nearly perfect in 
its conservation of force ; that ninety-five per 
cent, of its power is utilized. If we could 
learn to live so that ninety-five per cent, of 
our energy should become light or power, it 
would be a wonderful triumph. We waste 
life's force in many ways, but in no way 
more needlessly or more uselessly than in 
worrying. He who has learned to live with- 
out worry has learned to live and work 
without waste of energy. Life is so short, 
and there is so much that ought to be done, 
that whatever enables us to hold the forces 
of our being in hand for true and useful 



don't worry. 29 

service, adds greatly to the value of our 
existence. 

This is the lesson. Is it not worth while 
to learn it ? It can be learned. It will not 
come easily — nothing really worth while 
comes easily. But it can be learned. It 
ought to be learned, too, by every follower 
of Christ. 

He will help us to learn it, for He under- 
stands how hard it is. Yet it is as a Teacher 
that He promises to give us the help. "Come 
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. . . . Learn of 
me . . . and ye shall find rest unto your 
souls." He would teach us how to live so 
that we may find this rest — which is the very 
blessing of which we have been thinking — the 
blessedness of not worrying. We cannot get 
the lesson in one day. He does not give it to 
us as a gift, passing it from His hand into ours. 
It is a blessing which has to be taken into 
our life through our own learning and doing. 

No teacher can put knowledge into a 
pupil's mind, or skill into his hand, save 
through the pupil's own striving. Even 
Christ cannot make our life unanxious save 
through our own eager desire and seeking. 
Prayer will help, but prayer alone will not 
get a child's lesson for him. 



30 don't worry. 

Standing before a masterpiece of art in one 
of the Old World's galleries, a young artist 
said to Ruskin : " Ah ! if I could put such a 
dream on canvas!" "Dream on canvas!" 
growled the critic ; "it will take ten thousand 
touches of the brush on the canvas to make 
your dream." Looking at the divine ideal of 
an unanxious life, as we see it, first in the 
words and then in the character of Jesus, we 
are all ready to wish we might realize it. 
But wishing alone will never lift us up to this 
holy beauty.. We must toil to reach it. It 
will take ten thousand touches of the brush 
to put the dream on canvas. Mere dreaming 
does little. Chiselled on the tomb of a dis- 
appointed, heart-broken king, Joseph II. of 
Austria, in the royal cemetery at Vienna, is 
this pitiable epitaph : " Here lies a monarch 
who, with the best intentions, never carried 
out a single plan." Not thus can we learn 
our lesson. Good intentions will do nothing 
unless they are wrought into deeds and into 
character. Better far was the spirit of Joan 
of Arc, who, when asked the secret of the 
victoriousness of her famous white standard, 
replied : " I said to it, ' Go boldly among the 
English,' and then I followed it myself." 
Thus only can we win the splendor of a life 
without worry. We must have our good 



DON'T WORRY. 31 

intentions, and send them forward like white 
banners, but we must follow them ourselves. 
We must put our dreams into beautiful life. 

Thus day by day, "no day without a line," 
we may get the lesson learned. Christ will 
help us if we try in His name. As we go 
forward, He will make the struggle easier for 
us. He will make the dreams come true as 
we strive to make them real. 






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